


We are what we have made

by Ark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Clone Sex, First Time, Humor, Illusions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 20:45:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13842699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark/pseuds/Ark
Summary: Thor can never know—Thor can never, ever know—but it’s a better distraction for Loki than killing people, isn’t it?Much better. Thor, if he were here, would far prefer that Loki have sex with twin doubles of himself than let anyone on ship die a needless death, just because Loki is bored. Right?





	We are what we have made

**Author's Note:**

  * For [triedunture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/gifts).



> for my dear [stuffimgoingtohellfor](http://stuffimgoingtohellfor.tumblr.com), who likes a double or a triple or really, who's counting? many thanks to witty & beautiful beta [bewaretheides315](http://bewaretheides315.tumblr.com). come say hey on [tumblr](http://et-in-arkadia.tumblr.com) if you are fond of posts about which odinson is the true fashion sibling.

Loki is bored.

Loki is very bored.

Loki is very, very, _very_ bored.

This doesn’t bode well for his state of mind, and it also has the potential for far-reaching consequences. The times in his life when Loki has been most bored resulted in a plot or a plan or a fall from grace and then people died, whether he intended for them to die or not.

He’s in no kind of mood to cause anyone’s death at the moment. First of all, it’s impractical. They’re all trapped here on this godforsaken ship, there’s nowhere he could escape to, and he’d have to face some kind of idiotic kangaroo court in space. 

Second of all, since they’re all trapped here on this godforsaken ship, he’s come to know most of their names and faces and their children and he’d feel more regret than usual if people died. He’s losing his edge, but there’s not much that can be done until he can leave again. Distance is the only cure.

Third of all, Thor would be beside himself. “Brother, I thought you finally changed for the better, but I can see that I was a fool,” Thor would say, wet-eyed, or something equally insufferable and dramatic, and Loki isn’t inclined to take up that particular dance. He’s back on a level ground with Thor for the first time in a long time, and it isn’t worth breaking their accord quite yet just because he’s bored. 

So he’s invested in keeping everyone alive. For now.

The ship is currently at half-power while a maintenance overhaul is being performed. All non-essential illumination and technological diversions are shut off—he can’t even listen to music for distraction—and the population has been instructed to remain in their cabins as much as possible, to prevent accidents in the darkened corridors.

Loki knows perfectly well that he’s not restricted to his room, knows he’s capable of conjuring his own damned light, thank you—yet Thor had said quite clearly that he wasn’t needed for the overhaul, and suggested with that bright, warm, stupid grin of his that Loki take some much-needed rest. 

Loki can’t rest. He’s too bored to rest. Resting requires a peace of mind that eludes him because his mind feels stuck like a fly newly caught in amber and struggling to break free, aware at the same time of its own inescapable doom.

Maybe he should drink.

That’s an idea, and he helps himself to a glass of wine from the finest of the Grandmaster’s reserves. He misses, with sudden mournful zeal, the palace library; had he anything proper to read, this foul mood would pass easily. But all the blasted ship has by way of reading material is a series of tawdry erotic tomes Loki already read, aloud, for the Grandmaster’s benefit on Sakaar, and some star maps he’s long since memorized. 

It’s possible that some of their passengers have finer literature squirrelled away, but no one has seemed inclined to volunteer that information, and Loki can’t really blame them. If he had a precious volume he’d guard it with his life.

Because it’s either read or go mad, Loki pours another glass of wine, and with a sigh, he summons one of the Grandmaster’s purple books to his hand. Purple in prose and neon purple silk binding—that man had no subtlety or shame. He opens it to a random page, since they are much the same:

_“Oh! Twins!” The Grandmaster exclaimed cleverly. “I do love twins!”_

(The books are all the more insufferable as the Grandmaster stars in _all_ of them. Loki suspects him of writing—or at least dictating—the lot.)

_The matching golden brothers shone with oil rubbed all over their hard, buff, fit, muscularly muscled bodies. They smiled at the Grandmaster adoringly._

_“I see it’s not just your big arm muscles that are big and hard,” said the Grandmaster wittily. “What’ve you got for me, boys?”_

_“Do you want to fuck us first, mighty Grandmaster?” asked twin number one, his blond hair and oiled biceps glistening in the candlelight from the diamond-strewn candelabra, the largest such diamond candelabra in five galaxies._

_“Or should we fuck each other for your entertainment, O Great One?” asked twin number two, his blue eyes glittering with anticipation and reverence as he looked upon the all-knowing celestial being before him, who was still surprisingly and overwhelmingly handsome for his age, with the remarkable vigor of a_

“Hmm,” says Loki, and he takes a larger sip of wine than he intended. He doesn’t quite recall having read this particular scene—he’d tried to zone out most of the time when given reading-aloud duties on Sakaar—and as much as the text hurts his eyes, the image that it conjures is appealing enough. 

His body at least thinks so; his cock is achingly hard. Truth be told, it’s been a long while since Loki let himself indulge in a satisfactory release. There’s always something to do on board ship that requires his attention—healing, organizing their resources, making decisions for Thor and convincing Thor he’s made the decision himself—no real time for anything of the sort.

Well, he has time now, doesn’t he? Nothing but time.

It’s the least-boring idea that has occurred to Loki in hours. He closes the book and sets it aside. Then he shuts his eyes, and tries to eliminate the Grandmaster from the scene and focus on those able twins. 

Golden. Blond hair and blue eyes. Strong. Tall and muscle-bound and broad-shouldered. He’ll make them gorgeous, confident, much larger than he is because Loki likes a challenge and a big cock. Two matching cocks! Oh, this is the best plan he’s had in ages. 

He keeps this description in mind as he focuses his magic and gives the illusions flesh—a lot of flesh. His mouth is watering already. He opens his eyes and—

—two identical Thors stand before him, their perfect bodies shiny with oil. Both wear loincloths that are more of a suggestion than an actual garment, and their blond hair is long over their shoulders. Their cheeks are freshly shaven, and Thor’s missing eye is restored; they look like his brother had looked when he approached Loki in his prison on Asgard years ago. Resplendent. Serious. Ready for action.

Mostly naked.

Loki scrambles to his feet, nearly knocking over his wine glass. “Fuck,” he says. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

The Thors smile at him warmly, and Loki’s stomach drops. His cock is suddenly so hard he’s on the verge of pain. 

This is an unmitigated disaster. This is the worst idea he’s ever had.

“Do you want to fuck us first, mighty Loki?” asks the Thor on his right, and Loki almost leaps out of his skin. The scene really had made an impression, hadn’t it? 

This is … an idea. Some kind of idea. Maybe not his worst.

Hearing those words from Thor’s mouth, in Thor’s voice, provokes a reaction in Loki that he will deny having until the day he dies: he bites back a groan. 

Then all Loki’s capable of seeing is a projection of the Thor’s question. The illusion of Thor on his knees while Loki thrusts into him from behind. The illusion of Thor on his back, taking Loki’s cock again and again. The illusion of Thor riding Loki’s cock, begging for more—

No, it’s even worse, it’s even better. There are _two_ Thors. While Loki fucks one the other could fuck Loki’s mouth. Or—

“Or should we fuck each other for your entertainment, O Great One?” asks the Thor on his left.

“I need to think,” Loki snaps, before he snaps entirely and shouts _Yes. Now. Yes._ He reaches for his glass and tosses back the rest of the wine. He starts pacing back and forth while they watch him with those blue eyes that Loki knows far too well. 

He can’t think, though. Pacing doesn’t help. He tries to tell himself it’s all a mistake, that his magic went awry, but he can’t shake the feeling that the magic performed exactly as it was bid. 

Does he want to fuck Thor? Does he want to be fucked by Thor?

Does he want, apparently, for two Thors to fuck each other?

Loki’s head hurts, but it’s likely the pressure from his cock, which is telling him in no undue terms to make up his mind. 

His cock has already made up its mind.

Who even is he right now? 

Isn’t he Thor’s—

—but it’s not as though—they aren’t brothers in the traditional sense, not anymore, even if they still call each other _brother_. Kind of like a nickname. Yes, a friendly nickname. And their parents—Thor’s parents, really—are gone. Asgard is mostly gone. Totally displaced. 

Thor is just a man that Loki grew up with, that he’s worshipped and despised in equal measures for as long as he can remember, the most damned infuriating and beautiful person he’s ever set eyes upon and is ever liable to—

“Oh, shit,” says Loki. The Thors tilt their heads at him as one. “I’m going straight to Hel.”

Well, it’s not as if he isn’t headed for Hel anyway. 

Why not enjoy the trip? 

Thor can never know—Thor can never, ever know—but it’s a better distraction for Loki than killing people, isn’t it? 

Much better. Thor, if he were here, would far prefer that Loki have sex with twin doubles of himself than let anyone on ship die a needless death, just because Loki is bored. Right? Right.

Even with this sound logic in hand, Loki is astonished to find himself—of all things—nervous. Maybe he doesn’t really want this. Maybe this is just a huge misunderstanding. But since they’re here already, at a considerable expenditure of magic—

“Kiss each other,” Loki says. His voice emerges hoarse, and he coughs to clear it. “With tongue.”

The Thors turn and fall into an embrace on his command. Their seeking mouths fit together seamlessly; their arms slide around doubled broad shoulders; they fist identical hands in each other’s flaxen hair. 

It is, bar none, the most stunning and arousing sight that Loki has ever seen. They keep kissing like that, unceasing, the wet sounds of their lips and the flash of their tongues making Loki so hard his vision starts to blur.

“Stop,” Loki pants. They do at once, glancing at him for further instruction. Loki gestures, choosing a Thor at random. “You,” he says, then takes a deep breath and steps over the line. “Kiss me.”

The indicated Thor breaks away and is approaching when Loki is struck by the immediacy of what he’s requested actually occurring. The illusion looks just like Thor—or like Thor once had—and even without intelligence behind its eyes, Thor’s resting face still seems unspeakably earnest to Loki, and it remains unduly attractive. 

Then the Thor is bearing down on him and reaching out and Loki hears himself say, “Slowly.”

So the Thor touches Loki’s cheek with his hand before carefully leaning down to kiss him. It starts with a gentle, inquisitive brush of lips, so deliciously tempting that Loki must have more at once; he slides his fingers deep into the Thor’s hair and draws him in. 

The Thor keeps going slow, as ordered, introducing just the most delicate, exquisite dart of its tongue, and now its hands are coming up to frame Loki’s face, and it is so—

Loki pulls away and shoves the Thor back, his lungs burning: he hadn’t breathed through any of that, he hadn’t _blinked_. 

The most deeply felt and moving kiss of his life, and it’s with a sorcerous automaton of Thor? Is this what he’s been reduced to? _Who is he?_

Loki is shaking, and then, all at once, he is angry. What is he doing, telling it to go slow, like this is something _tender_? Alone in his cabin with a matched set of nearly-naked Thors ready to enact his wildest fantasies and he’s kissing like a youth after his first embrace?

“Undress me,” Loki orders the Thor that’s watching them blankly. To the one before him, the Thor that kissed him, he says, “Get on your knees.”

The Thor kneels so easily, with such smooth and ready grace. It’s breathtaking, and the sight of his brother knelt before him scratches an itch in Loki that’s been present for many, many years. But it’s not quite right. It’s too _easy_. 

Thor would never just drop to his knees like that. Or if he would—if it were a game between them, if this were real—he’d kneel with a glimmer in his eye, a knowing smile on his lips. The illusion looks like Thor but its bright eyes are empty.

“I don’t give a damn,” Loki says out loud, for his own benefit. “It hardly matters.” 

The Thor he’s tasked with disrobing him accomplishes it with brisk efficiency. No lingering touches, no pauses to press meaningful kisses into Loki’s revealed skin, no murmured oaths and exclamations. Okay. Maybe it matters. A little.

Thor, the real Thor, would be vocal and enthusiastic, Loki thinks. When Loki was young he used to listen in with interest to the testimonials of the courtiers and servants that Thor bedded. How fervently they all praised Thor’s kindness, his vigor, his desire to see them pleased, his, apparently, exceptional cock—

“Fuck!” Loki practically shrieks it. By every God, how long has he been obsessed with his brother’s leisure activities? 

He told himself back then it was a means of knowing everything about Thor, to learn his strengths and weaknesses and worst habits—but no one had ever reported any ill behavior from Thor. And their effusive praise only drove Loki to spiralling, oppressive thoughts as he tried not to imagine it. Then he pursued further testimonials.

The Thor behind him pauses, then seems to take Loki’s outburst as a command. It grabs for Loki’s hips, yanks him back, taut along the bold lines of its body. Its hard cock, which Loki has illusioned to be quite enormous, presses ready against the cleft of Loki’s ass, and Loki shivers from crown to toe. 

All he needs do is not stay its momentum, and he’ll get the fucking that—if it’s not quite exactly what he wants—might well be what he deserves. A pale shadow of his brother: can he believe he’s earned anything more? 

It will still feel good, he knows. He can make it good. And if he looks over his shoulder, it will seem almost like it is really Thor who is taking him, and Loki is very good at pretending.

Loki bites his lip. “Don’t,” he whispers, and the Thor halts. 

What’s _wrong_ with him? 

He needs more time. More time to get used to this, to sort out what he really wants. It’s all a bit overwhelming. He’ll get there. 

And won’t it be better if he draws it out, ups his anticipation? When he’s ready he’ll be able to command it to fuck him in a domineering tone, not have this be an accident. He’ll be in control.

Control. He needs to be in control of this. It calls for fine orchestration. “You,” he says to the Thor behind him, “down on your knees as well. Spread me and ready me with your mouth.” The Thor is on its knees at once, and it reaches for him with something Loki could read as eagerness. “And your tongue,” he adds. “Get me very wet. Don’t stop until I tell you to.”

The swipe of the Thor’s tongue against Loki’s entrance feels so remarkable he almost stumbles. It does as it is told, keeps Loki’s cheeks spread with its big hands while it licks and lavishes him with spit-slick slides and teasing incursions. 

Loki moans and lets his eyelids flutter shut: it’s been terribly long since anyone did this, and for a moment, he doesn’t care who it is. As the insistent tongue breaches him Loki cries out rather shamelessly.

Then he opens his eyes and looks back, and lets himself flirt with the idea that it’s really Thor there, edging his tongue deeper and deeper into Loki’s body—it _looks_ like Thor—and he almost comes from that alone. He grips at the base of his cock to keep himself from giving over.

“You,” Loki says shakily to the Thor knelt before him. “Suck my cock. Ah. Gods, that’s good—Oh. _Oh._ ” As the Thor moves to comply, the sight of his lips parting to take in Loki’s cock, while his blue eyes remain fixed on Loki’s eyes, is too much—too much, and yet still not enough. 

“Be enthusiastic about it,” Loki murmurs. The Thor’s face splits on a dazzling grin, and he licks a blazing stripe from the base of Loki’s cock to the head.

Loki shudders. He wants to close his eyes, he wants to never close his eyes, he wants all of these images branded in his brain, wants them burned into his eyelids so he sees this when he sleeps. 

“Tell me—” and he mouths the words he realizes that he wants to hear; these are his creations, this is his magic made flesh, and the command at any decibel will do.

The Thor looks up at him. “Let me do this for you, Loki,” it recites in Thor’s softest tone. “Brother, you cannot know how long I have waited.”

Loki nods, struck speechless by what he has wrought. The Thor starts to expertly swallow down his cock. Its mouth feels so real: hot and wet around him, as hot and wet as the Thor still tonguing him insistently from behind. 

Loki reaches forward, tangles his hands in those spun-gold locks to stay steady—he hardly needs to press for the Thor to take him further, as it is delightfully choking on his length with every enthusiasm, as instructed. 

Buffeted between the two Thors, the pleasure is so outstanding that Loki could scream and scream and scream maybe forever, but he only gets out a startled moan before he’s coming hard, gripping the Thor’s hair and riding out the exquisite waves of it. Behind him the other Thor curls its tongue just right and Loki jerks on an aftershock, his heart racing and his head full of stars. 

He lets his eyes close, spent, slack with relief.

“That was interesting,” says Thor.

Loki is hallucinating—an auditory, orgasm-induced hallucination. Hallucinating, because he’s sandwiched between two Thors that still have their mouths full and are incapable of speech. 

His guilt and inner conflict is such that he’s imagining things, and now his mind is playing cruel tricks.

Please let his mind be playing cruel tricks.

He opens his eyes, and follows the voice, and Thor is leaning against the closed door, his arms crossed. It’s Thor— _his_ Thor—his one eye taking in the sight, the golden gleam from his eyepatch reflected in the room’s soft illumination. 

Thor with close-cropped hair and rugged beard, clad in the black leather armor he’s taken to wearing as king. The reality of him is such that the illusions surrounding Loki look like what they are—pale approximations, cheap imitations of the glorious original.

Thor’s face is expressionless. Loki freezes in place. Only Loki’s mouth moves, twists in a rictus of astonished horror.

The moment unspools as Loki tries to decide what to do. Infinite possibilities stretch out into the abyss. 

He can render Thor unconscious with magic—he knows he can, if he moves quickly enough. Then it’s only a matter of reaching into Thor’s memory and correcting it—making Thor forget he ever entered Loki’s cabin today. That’s the best option, the soundest. 

Another possibility is turning Thor into some kind of more manageable creature to buy time if the first spell doesn’t hit hard enough. Another possibility is turning himself into a creature small enough to slip away where Thor can’t get at him. 

With a series of frantic gestures, Loki vanishes the Thors; another gesture manifests a dressing gown that wraps him in dark green silk. Thus covered, he turns on his heel, readying a blast—

—and Thor holds up a swift hand to stay him. “I don’t want to forget what I saw, Loki.”

Loki stares, red-faced with mortification and outrage and not a little fear. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t try and take it from me. I’d rather not fight you for it.” Thor flexes his hand; a tiny crackle of lightning sparks from his fingers, the smallest reminder of what he's capable of. Then he crosses his arms again. He’s still leaning coolly against the door. “Why don’t we talk about it?”

“Talk about it!” Loki is doing a fine impression of a fish, gaping, his mouth opening and closing of its own volition. A nervous muscle jumps in his cheek. Distantly he’s amazed that Thor is neither shouting at him nor moving to strangle him. Distantly, Loki is aware that he’s the one shouting. “ _Talk about it!_ ”

“Yes.” Thor works his jaw, looking thoughtful. Then he says, “I should not have intruded without knocking, but I was at your door already, and I heard you cry out. I thought that something ailed you.”

Loki will turn himself into an actual fish, let himself fall to the ground and flop around in misery until the lack of air relieves him of having to live through this. 

“I admit I was startled,” Thor says, somehow still talking, “and it was a bit strange to see. I never thought that I would be jealous of me.”

Loki’s color drains from flushed red to chalk-white. “What?”

“Jealous,” Thor repeats, as though Loki is hard of hearing. “Of me. Well, ‘me’s, as the case may be.” He runs a hand, suddenly self-conscious, through his shorn cut. “Do you really prefer the longer hair so much? It will take a while to grow back.”

“Thor,” Loki manages, so confused that he’s getting dizzy, “I don’t understand.”

“Ah, yes,” says Thor. He pulls a rueful smile. “The delivery was a bit off—I do not think my voice is quite so low in truth. But the words were true enough to give me hope. Brother,” and he pushes off from the wall and takes a step toward Loki. “You cannot know how long I have waited.”

Loki blinks at him, and then he scowls. So Thor was there at the door, watching, long enough to hear that; now the sentiment is a weapon to wield against Loki. This hurts more than if Thor simply throttled him, as was his due. He watches Thor come closer, tries to decide if he should lash back with magic or with his nails like claws. 

Instead, Loki laughs, bitterly, helplessly, before Thor can laugh at him. “Yes, go ahead and mock me. I deserve it. Tell me how pathetic I am.”

Thor is looming into his space. He shakes his head a little, his eye darkening. “Loki—”

“ _Say it!_ ”

“Loki,” Thor says. “Shut up.” 

Thor leans down, and then he’s kissing Loki. It’s nothing like the kiss from the Thor that Loki magicked. It’s urgent, not slow in the slightest—when Loki parts his lips in shock, Thor licks into his mouth without pausing, as though it is his right. It’s brazenly confident and devastatingly intimate. 

Thor’s hand palms Loki’s cheek, tilts Loki’s head up so that his tongue can go deeper. He tastes like the weak coffee from the commissary and like smoke from a lightning-struck wood, and a flavor that is only quantifiable as _safety_. 

Loki’s hands scrabble at Thor’s chest, finally finding purchase on the leather, and he clings tight so that he stays standing. Mindlessly, he returns the kiss, his tongue pushing back at Thor’s for the presumption that Loki will yield so readily. He wins ground and runs his tongue along the ridges of Thor’s teeth in triumph.

Then Loki’s mind catches up with his body, and he breaks away, gasping, a thousand questions on his astoundingly well-kissed lips. “Wait! Wait.”

“Should I?” Thor’s brow furrows. His strokes two fingers down Loki’s cheek. “I thought I’d be waiting forever. I thought you didn’t want—and then I thought you were dead—” His small smile shades grim. “—and then I thought you were lost to me. And then I thought you were dead, again. Then the world ended, and, Loki, still I waited. If you ask it of me, I will put aside what I saw here, and wait a while longer. I thought I’d be waiting forever. I can.”

Loki closes his eyes. He feels a great internal tension give out, a rusted-over lock suddenly sprung open. He presses his forehead against Thor’s—he lets himself do that. “You should have _told_ me.”

“Every day I ask myself if it would have made a difference,” Thor admits. “If it would have changed what befell us. Would it have?”

Loki flinches, his eyes squeezed shut. For once, he tells the truth. “I don’t know,” he says slowly, puzzling through improbable possibilities. “It might have been worse. I’d have used it to hurt you. Destroyed us both.” He chews on his lip. “Thor, I still could.”

“Maybe,” Thor reasons. “Or maybe we will both die tomorrow in some unstoppable catastrophe. But at least I will have known what your mouth tastes like.”

Loki opens his eyes, meets Thor’s fixed gaze. “What’s that, then?”

“Red wine.” Thor’s lips find and press Loki’s again. “Secrets.” Another kiss. “The first snows of winter.” Another. “Like home, brother.” 

This time it is Loki who kisses Thor, hauling Thor against him with all of the strength that he can muster. Loki’s strength is considerable, and Thor is so willing to be hauled, that they are nearly overbalanced. Thor fixes the lack of equilibrium by lifting Loki up and into his arms, off the floor entirely. 

Loki helps the maneuver by continuing to kiss Thor without pause and by wrapping his legs around Thor’s waist, his arms tight around Thor’s neck. He urges his tongue encouragingly against Thor’s, and Thor walks them like that towards the bed, his mouth never leaving Loki’s.

Anticipatory desire shoots through Loki, mixed with the awe and amazement and confusion until it’s all a muddle in his head. 

He cannot believe that they are here. He cannot believe that they have ever been anything else. To know how long Thor has wanted makes Loki ache for whole centuries of lost and squandered time. He is determined to correct this unfathomable oversight as fast as possible. 

He knows what he's doing. Possibly.

He finds he wants nothing so much, he’s never wanted anything so much, as for Thor to toss him down and take him—quickly, before they have too much time to stop and think and talk about their feelings again

He’ll work to make this happen. Loki pulls away from the kiss, assumes what he knows is his most seductive tone and the coy expression that has always won him admirers in the past. 

“You can fuck me, should you like,” he says, sliding the fingers of one hand through Thor’s cropped hair. A thrill of satisfaction seizes him as Thor reacts with an indrawn breath and a look of terrific need. Lok’s lips turn in a small, suggestive smile. “It’s not as though we need time to get better acquainted. You’ve waited long enough, and I’m all ready, aren’t I?”

“I’ll not fault your creations,” Thor says against Loki’s cheek, “but I’ll have to see that for myself to be sure.” He kisses a breathtaking line from Loki’s ear down Loki’s neck, then finds a new path to follow along Loki’s collarbone while Loki shivers against him and thinks too hard. 

The kisses are hungry but also, Loki thinks, somehow _thoughtful_. Each one is rendered with care and more reverence than he’d been able to conjure even in his wild conjecture of what Thor’s lips might feel like on his skin. 

He could make a hundred magical copies of Thor to serve him and never feel anything like the pressure of Thor’s teeth as they set into the curve of his shoulder. Everything is awful and wonderful.

“Do it,” Loki hears himself hiss, as though from far away. “Mark me,” and oh, fuck, but Thor does, none too gently: he bites, then sucks a blood bruise that Loki knows will show garishly, angrily red against his pale skin. Loki squirms in Thor’s arms as he keeps sucking, as though the mark could be lain permanently. “Oh, fuck,” says Loki, giving voice to his internal monologue. 

Thor lifts his head. “Yes,” he agrees. The marking has got his blood up, like Loki hoped it would, for he follows it by throwing Loki down upon the bed and climbing over him in just the way Loki wants. 

Less thinking, less talking—fucking first, and afterwards, once it’s done and they can’t take it back, then they can talk about the messy things like emotions and shared histories and the myriad complications that come with this. 

Loki tugs at Thor’s armor, and Thor starts to free himself from it without hesitation, pausing only to kiss Loki’s lips or some other stretch of skin, and to study Loki’s face in a fashion so flattering that it’s highly disconcerting. No one has ever looked at Loki like this before; he knows then with a jolting certainty that feels like foreshadowing that no one else ever will.

Emotions, again. They need to hurry.

Working together, they manage to get Thor’s leather jerkin off. The expanse of his chest is so broad that Loki, as he lets his fingers trace across it, thinks they might never reach the other side. The cut of his abdomen is like that of a statue’s chiseled from marble and set upon a dais to be worshipped, so solid that Loki wants to break himself upon it. The muscles of his arms flex their strength in such a way as to suggest they could bear the weight of the world and still Thor would ask for more to carry.

“I did a poor job of rendering you,” Loki says, speaking his admiration. He’s changing his own rules about making this fast and silent save for moans, but the sight of Thor forces the words out unbidden. His gaze lingers on Thor so thoroughly that even Thor, who has known and been told just how he looks for several thousand years, appears flushed and pleased. 

Loki’s fingertip draws a line from the soft flesh of Thor’s throat down across the hardened planes of his stomach. The prominent vee of Thor’s hipbones are shaped just so for Loki to grip, he’s sure, and so he grips. 

“The magic made you like a shadow filtered through murky glass. It could not capture even half of what you are,” he tells Thor.

“Is that why you made two of me?” Thor asks lightly, teasing. He has shown great restraint, not tearing the dressing gown from Loki, though the flimsy material would rip for him under the mildest exertion. 

No, his hand travels up and down Loki’s body with fine silk as a barrier, driving Loki to distraction and nearly to madness. 

The first time Thor reaches to palm Loki’s straining cock it is through silk. The friction of it, the knowledge that the hand is Thor’s, permits a small sound suspiciously like a whimper to escape from Loki’s mouth before he presses his lips tight. 

Loki lifts his hips and thrusts against Thor’s hand, seeking further friction. “The twins were a mistake,” he says without thinking, too busy trying not to gasp. “Had I been planning for it I’d not have tried to copy that which cannot be replicated.”

Loki intends it to be a compliment—it’s a compliment in his head—but too abruptly, Thor withdraws his hand. He leans back on his haunches, astraddle Loki. His expression goes frighteningly blank. “A mistake.”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck. “I—no,” Loki starts, words spilling out everywhere. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I simply meant—”

“Then you did not intend to call my image there to please you,” Thor says. “You did not desire me until the opportunity presented itself.”

Panic washes over Loki as he watches the most fantastic thing to ever happen threaten to disappear as quickly as he’d vanished away the other Thors. 

“Brother,” he says, reaching for Thor’s wrist and curling his fingers around the pulsepoint. Thor’s heart beats hard beneath his touch. This Thor cannot be permitted to vanish. 

“What I summoned was not what I started out intending, but only because I am so accustomed to lying to myself and to others that the truth often eludes me. I _tried_ to give flesh to what would most please me, what I wanted most, and I made _you,_ Thor. I told myself it was an accident so that I would not have to face my own self-deception.” 

Loki is sweating with effort: it’s the most honesty he can recall ever speaking in one stretch. It’s exhausting. 

Thor stares down at him without speaking, but the flat line of his mouth softens. Loki scrambles: “If you would know the truth—and I swear, it is the truth—it is that I have desired you for so long that I could not tell you when it began,” he says. “It unnerved me, so I buried it deep. Tried to turn it into other things. Competition. Antagonism. Betrayal. If I could best you, if I could learn and exploit your weaknesses, if I could goad you into hating me—it would mean that you would never learn the truth, and I would not be ruled by it.”

“I have never hated you, Loki. I am not capable of it,” says Thor. “I love you far too much.”

If only they had had this conversation, this unique kind of grappling and reckoning, a lifetime ago. Many lifetimes. Unaccountably, Loki feels tears threaten his eyes. He can’t remember the last time he cried from anything save the pain of grievous injury, and he works frantically to blink the wetness away. 

He barely recognizes himself. He feels suddenly very young, and the Loki he once was, long ago and far away—the Loki that had adored Thor so desperately he would have done _anything_ for his brother—that Loki sees what he has become since, and wants to weep. 

“I’m sorry,” Loki whispers. He hadn’t intended to say any such thing; he hadn’t intended, ever, to say any of these things. But you try having Thor half-naked and astride you and gazing down with that electric blue eye like you’re all that matters and not giving over every single last one of your secrets. 

This is exactly why Loki wanted to speed them through a quick fuck first. It’s become all about feelings and he hasn’t even seen Thor’s cock yet. 

“For what I’ve done,” Loki clarifies. “For some things I’ll probably still do.”

“I forgive you,” Thor says, smiling now, and too shiny-eyed himself. “Can you forgive me, for not seeing—for choosing to wait, instead of act?” 

“I’ve forgotten all about it already.” Loki exhales a quivering breath. “Thor, _please_.”

“Tell me what I can do. Tell me what you want—what I can give you,” Thor says, heat bright as his lightning back in his eye. “Do you want my mouth on you first? I want to memorize every taste that you have. Do you want my cock? I’ve wanted to have you for a thousand years, and I intend to have you for a thousand more. Or do you want to have me? I’m newer to that, I’ll admit, but I’ve dreamt of you taking me more times than I can count, and my dreams are prophetic.” 

“Fuck,” says Loki with feeling. 

“Indeed, but how?” Thor says with enough mischief that Loki pushes up onto his elbows and pulls Thor down by the neck, sealing their mouths together.

When Loki lets him go, he lets himself indulge this time. He kisses Thor everywhere he can reach, across the endless breadth of his shoulders, down the thickly corded muscles of his arm. He sinks his teeth into Thor’s bicep, to hear Thor exclaim at his touch. 

Then Loki turns his head and says, quite clearly, “Fuck me, Thor. Claim me. _Change me_.” It’s nearly a snarl; it’s definitely begging. “That is what I want.”

“You will have it,” Thor says, and then he does what Loki’s been waiting for—grasps handfuls of green silk and tears the robe from Loki’s body in one shiver-inducing display of brute strength. He follows the motion by leaning over and closing his lips and teeth on one of Loki’s nipples, newly revealed. 

“You are stunning,” Thor says, as he travels to the other nipple, purposefully dragging the bristle of his beard across Loki’s skin. “You are a feast made just for me.” He flicks his tongue, insistent. “I am going to devour you, Loki.”

Loki arches shamelessly against him for more, and that’s when he feels the hard, huge readiness of Thor’s cock for the first time. Even encased within Thor’s breeches the shape of it is immense.

“Now,” says Loki, as desire spikes through him so sharply it knocks the wind from his lungs. He gasps for air. “I need—be gentle later, next time, if you wish—just—be _in_ me—”

Thor nods, moves away to strip free of his pants—very quickly, Loki is pleased to see—and Loki pouts at the loss of Thor’s comforting weight belting his hips. But then Thor moves back, and he parts Loki’s legs and settles between them. Loki shuts his mouth with a jarring click of his teeth.

He wants to laugh, hysterically; he wants to laugh, in delight; he wants to laugh, with something like fear; he wants to laugh and laugh so much that Thor will be forced to silence him. Preferably with the perfectly preposterous cock he has just introduced into the equation.

Thor’s cock is, for lack of any better word to describe it, otherworldly. It is the cock of a true god, longer and thicker than anything Loki has encountered, larger than pornography made to celebrate large cocks. Because it is Thor’s it is unfairly, unnaturally beautiful down to the golden hair at its base. 

“Norns preserve us,” Loki says with the most religiosity he’s voiced in years. He sits up, reaches for Thor’s cock at once. He’ll never stop touching it ever again. “This—this you should have told me about a long time ago.”

Thor grins, then rocks a little in Loki’s grasp; he closes his eye for a moment, and when he opens it, his gaze is intent on Loki’s face. “Do you have—”

“Spells,” Loki says. “I have several applicable spells and I’m going to use all of them.” 

Thor is exceptionally hard as Loki strokes him; Loki has made him this hard. With a whispered word, on the next pass of his hand, Loki coats that magnificent cock in oil. A _lot_ of oil. Thor gives a start of surprise and then a low groan at the sensation. Another whispered word and Loki feels the spread of slick warmth inside of him, the stretch of phantom fingers. 

He should take more time considering Thor’s size, much more time, but there isn’t any time. Loki needs this right—“ _Now_ , brother.”

Thor does not require further prompting. He takes hold of his cock, guiding it to Loki’s entrance, which he teases with just enough pressure to push the thick head inside. Then Thor covers Loki’s body with his own, one hand finding and closing over Loki’s—holding his hand, and holding him pinned to the bed. 

“Loki,” Thor says, “ _Loki,_ ” and at Loki’s frantic nod thrusts into him. Loki cries out; anyone would cry out; he’s taking more than he ever has and that’s Thor’s extraordinary form working over his, that’s Thor’s mouth coming down on Loki’s mouth. 

Thor keeps thrusting, further and further each time into Loki’s depths, and Loki has the sudden unhinged thought that Thor will keep going until he finds the heart of him.

Thor is relentless, because Loki asked him to be. He uses his free hand to incline Loki’s hips so that Loki’s body accepts another inch of his cock, and another, and another, and another, and on and on and—it is slow torture of the highest order. Loki stares rather slack-jawed at Thor’s face and thinks about how this feels better than anything has the right to feel and also that it will destroy him. 

“All right?” Thor murmurs close to his ear. By every perverted God who contributed to the crafting of Thor, there’s still _more_ of him. 

“Yes,” Loki pants, “and no, but if you stop now I’ll take out your other eye.”

“Confusing feedback, brother.” Thor’s eyebrow goes up, and he keeps going in as told. He’s smiling, damn him—and there’s a kind of dazzled appreciation in his expression that Loki still struggles to process. “If it makes you feel better, no one has ever taken me so quickly or so well.”

“It doesn’t,” Loki says, but now, damn _everything_ , the irrational self-congratulatory cheer that Thor’s words introduce almost makes him smile also. “I might hate you again.”

“You don’t, though.” Now Thor’s smile is stamped against his neck; now it is ghosting across Loki’s lips. Thor pulls back, so that his next thrust goes so far he is nearly seated, and Loki cries out once more; and no one listening would detect anything in the tenor of his cry but overwhelmed, ecstatic pleasure. “You don’t.”

Then Thor is flush against him at last, and Loki knows nothing except _cock_ , cock is the only thing extant in the universe, there was nothing before cock and there will never be anything else again. He holds Thor within him as he tries to adjust to the impossible stretch and burn, as though such a majestic instrument can be adjusted to. 

“You did this on purpose,” Loki tells Thor. 

Thor was told not to be gentle, so he does not wait long, but takes himself out nearly all the way, then thrusts again with a concerted roll of his hips. He is agonizing perfection. “What did I do?”

Loki’s whole body is lit up, every nerve screaming, a lot of screaming happening inside his head. “Have—have this ridiculous cock. You’re trying to make it so that I’ll never be able to look at another cock without considering this one.”

Thor laughs, and the sound vibrates through Loki, gathering with buzzing warmth in his belly. “The cock I couldn’t plan for,” Thor says, driving in so fixed and deep that Loki almost— _almost_ tells him to go easier. “But the rest—yes. That is the sort of thought that would keep me up at night. I _am_ trying to do that, you’re right. I’ll not deny it.”

“Tell me,” Loki starts. His voice breaks on a moan. It takes several more monumental incursions of Thor’s cock before speech is restored to him. “Thor, tell me—tell me when you first thought of it.”

“Having you in my bed?” Thor seems to consider while he finds a rhythm, hard and sure, every thrust a revelation and a damnation. 

“I think,” he says, squeezing Loki’s caught hand, “I think—there was a night, though surely you do not recall, it was long ago—I was sporting with one of Mother’s pretty handmaidens, and we retired to my chamber and found you there. You were there to return a practice sword you’d borrowed, and were waiting with a bottle of wine to share; and, brother, I quite forgot about the maid.”

Loki blinks, startled. He recalls. 

“And then—” Thor drops his head, his lips to Loki’s neck, tasting him, as if he must sample and savor as much of Loki as he can. “—you apologized for disturbing us. It was so rare to see you blush even in our youth, that I could not stop myself from studying your face, and finding that I found it most fair. When you brushed past me to leave I was harder than I’d ever been.”

“I remember,” Loki says, pushing back insistently with his hips so that this time Thor is the one to moan. “Not you being—I mean, I remember that night.” 

He remembers the flush of embarrassment on his skin, the mingled curiosity and rage he felt when he looked at the fetching maid who was to have Thor that evening. 

He remembers telling himself the anger was because Thor was acting so very frivolous and self-indulgent, seeming to tumble a new person each day, wallowing in useless pleasure where he had once passed his hours with Loki at some game or adventure. Gods, but they’d been young then, barely of age. 

He remembers, keenly, borrowing the practice-sword that morning in the hopes that Thor would offer to take Loki in hand and teach him some new tricks himself.

He remembers Thor’s eyes upon him that night, scrutinizing, then filled with an odd light. He remembers—

”For a moment,” Loki says, “I thought you were going to ask me to stay, and join you both.”

Thor cants his head, his eye open wide; then he gives a thrust that is almost savage in its forward intensity. Loki feels his toes curl in response. “I was considering it when you rushed out,” Thor says. “I took that as your answer.”

Loki swallows, his mind a whirl of thinking backwards. “I was still a virgin,” he says. Thor chooses just then to take Loki’s cock in his hand, perhaps inspired by this confession. His grip is exemplary and unyielding, as though he has no plans to release Loki again. 

Loki adds, slowly, “Perhaps if I’d been more experienced, I’d have told myself it was just one more game between us, and remained.”

“As such, you did not,” Thor says, “but that was when the idea came upon me and never left. It shocked me, at first. I had the maid on her hands and knees, and all I could see was you beneath me. I thought I was going mad. There were times thereafter when I believed that you had cursed me, were tricking me with some spell, to always have your image before me, no matter who I fucked.”

“I wish I’d thought of it,” says Loki honestly, and Thor shakes above him with something that feels like riotous amusement and tremendous tension balanced on a razor’s edge. 

“Since then,” Thor concludes, “since that night, this is all that I’ve truly desired. You, Loki.” 

He kisses up Loki’s neck, nips at the soft flesh of Loki’s ear, then takes Loki’s lips with his own. All of Thor—his blazing eye, his insistent mouth, the massive set of his muscles, the steady, gorgeous pounding of his cock—all of him is unrelenting conviction and outstanding possessiveness, all of it for Loki, all of Thor in and above and around him.

Loki doesn’t know what to say to that: what is there to be said, save to question Thor’s decision-making process, for no one in their right mind would choose Loki when they might have anyone. So all he does is close his eyes and hang on. 

He lets his hand get a delightful grip on Thor’s ass, which would have won every Best Ass competition on Sakaar and maybe sparked a new religion devoted to its divine shape; his other hand, fingers entwined with Thor’s, clenches tight; he makes his legs and thighs brackets around Thor’s body, holding him as fiercely as he can. 

He moves to the rhythm that Thor is creating for them, and when Thor thrusts just right, Loki drags his teeth on Thor’s lip to make him do it again. Thor does, again and again and again.

With words faded to silence between them Thor is doing just as Loki asked: fucking him, claiming him, _changing_ him. 

Thor fucks with the sensuality and strength of the fertility god he also is under all those stormclouds. Skillful and attentive and fearsome at once, seeming to know without any prior knowledge every way Loki craves to be touched, and exploiting them all. 

If it were anyone but Thor over him Loki might show the truth of what this feels like, since it wouldn’t matter—let himself grunt and gulp and gasp and groan to each movement in counterpoint, but since it is Thor he tries to cling to some concept of dignity with his teeth and toenails. 

Thor knows that he is holding back, though, just as Thor seems to know everything else, and he appears dedicated to pushing Loki so far past every brink that Loki will not be able to remember that there is anything else between them save how this feels. 

Claiming him: can there be any doubt, now, how willingly he is Thor’s, when with every stroke Loki tries to spread his legs wider or rise up with his hips or tighten inside on Thor’s cock, when all of Loki is begging to have more of him? 

There is no doubt that Thor is making it so that no one else will be able to touch Loki without their touch seeming like a mockery compared to what he can do. It’s not only the immensity of his cock (though that helps), but the look in his eye, direct and knowing and daring Loki to reject the claim that he stakes. 

It is his hands, fitted around Loki’s cock and Loki’s wrist with such surety as to suggest they have always been there. It is his mouth, kissing Loki over and over again, until they are dizzy and heady with lack of air, then moving to lick salt-sweet sweat from Loki’s skin wherever it has gathered—the dip of his collarbone, the curve of his hairline, the rise of his ribs. 

Thor says nothing aloud, doesn’t say _Brother, there’s no way back for you from this, you’re well and truly fucked now_ , for actions are ever louder than words, and his deafen with the force of cyclones.

So can Loki, fucked, claimed, be anything but changed? Who is he? What was he? What will he be? 

Mere hours ago he was a person feeling restless and trapped and bored, rudderless; a person at war with himself, second-guessing every thought, and lying to himself besides; he was, he believed, an afterthought of Thor’s vast affection, which had room enough for the whole ship, even his recalcitrant brother.

Now—now, Loki is made to reevaluate all that he thought he knew and all that he was and is. He is, Thor says, and Thor’s body says, what Thor desires most—what Thor has for so long desired. 

What does that make him? 

Loki is wanted, demanded, needed. He does not carve out a small place in Thor’s heart—he commands it. 

Does he command it? Does this, the forge of their bed, where they are merging together, does this mean that Thor is his to have thereafter? 

Will Thor expect that Loki, Loki that he claims even now, will stay claimed, will stay at his side? Does Thor strive to make of him a partner, a thing past a lover, beyond even a brother? Does Thor intend not to let him go again?

Or is this fleeting—will Thor, once his lust is satisfied, no longer think of it? Are they joined only for the length of time their bodies allow? Will Thor pull free of him, and go back to the business of being king, and put this from his mind? Does Loki want him to?

(He supposes he is still second-guessing some thoughts.)

Loki knows that he knows nothing, save this:

He is changed, irrevocably, because now he knows the weight of Thor upon him, knows also the feeling of Thor inside him, of Thor having waited a thousand years to be inside him. He knows now that sex can be like this—like love is being made, something new created from nothing. Loki, too, is new. The person he was who awoke this morning, bleary-eyed and empty and alone, that Loki no longer exists. 

But what sort of Loki will take his place?

Is there space enough for all that he would be?

“I’d ask what you are thinking on,” says Thor into Loki’s ear, “if I thought you’d tell me, or I had any hopes of understanding it.”

“I wish not to think at all,” Loki says, caught off-guard by Thor’s words into speaking truth. 

“That I am better able to help with,” Thor says, emphasized by the turn of his hips and the mind-shattering motion of his cock. “Though I, too, am troubled by many thoughts. I will tell you them, for you have always been able to advise me when I cannot see the solution. If I can win your unwinding, that will be the end for me as well; but I wish to stay in you. Should I bring us to spend, or should I keep us on the edge until morning? Perhaps until the afternoon’s council meeting?”

Loki shakes his head, blinking up at Thor and trying hard not to smile or scoff. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”

“Mostly,” says Thor, his grip on Loki’s cock growing firmer, while the stroke of his cock goes deeper still, and faster, faster. “There are other thoughts competing—I think about how you said that next time I might be gentle if I like, and that then I will pass so many hours fucking you all meetings will be canceled. I am thinking, too, how much I want to have my mouth on you when you come—I told you I would learn every taste you have. Yet I want to be in you also when that happens. I keep returning to that point. It is a great dilemma.”

Loki groans, then, because Thor is working him just right—hand and cock and Thor’s voice, his delectable ideas, all a purring line up Loki’s spine that overloads his brain. “The solution,” Loki manages, while Thor attains a surely illegal speed, “the solution would be to taste me another way.”

“You’re right, brother. I’m not thinking clearly,” says Thor, and the word _brother_ in his mouth that he presses to Loki’s almost puts an end to Loki entirely. Then Thor says, his eye intent, “Say but a word and I will go over. I wish to spend inside you—fill you so far up that I’ll still be dripping down your thighs when I have you next.”

“Norns, but you’re _courteously_ filthy, of course you are,” Loki says, delighted, and gladder than he’ll ever admit that Thor is speaking of the next time; he quite claws at Thor’s back in encouragement. 

He decides, then, to let the chatty part of his brain, the over-thinking part, turn off. He’s permitted a few minutes of mental silence so that he can better focus on what his body is doing—what Thor’s body is doing to him, what Loki is preparing to give and take.

Because he’s given Thor more than a word, he’s given him nine whole words, produced with effort, and that’s more than enough to make Thor throw his head back and thrust very hard and far and hold himself there. 

The first sensation of Thor starting to spill makes Loki lose control. He gives up any pretence of aloofness or unaffectedness and wraps himself around Thor tight enough to hurt anyone else. He tries to draw Thor yet further in, while at the same time thrusting into Thor’s grip. 

Thor is saying his name like it’s being ripped out of him and it’s the single hottest thing that Loki has ever heard, hotter than a thousand Thors on hand to do his bidding. _A thousand Thors_ —

Then everything goes molten. Dimly, over a wash of pleasure so strong it’s a riptide that drags all his hidden selves to the surface, Loki feels his own wet heat spread across his skin. He hears his raised voice saying _Yes, yes_ and _Thor_ , and it sounds like a stranger’s voice, because its timbre is honest and helpless and adoring. 

He can’t imagine what his face must resemble when, as he watches, Thor uses Loki’s proposed solution and runs his fingers through the slick on Loki’s stomach. Then Thor slowly licks his fingers clean with obscene and obvious enjoyment—returning to the task until Loki’s skin is bare. 

Loki stares at him open-mouthed and wishes he’d thought to turn on one of the Grandmaster’s recording devices before this started because _fuck_ , he would watch that happen again and again every night for a bedtime story. 

He feels heavy with satisfaction, blissed-out down to his bones, and takes a measure of pride in that Thor looks just as drained—and just as satisfied. After what feels like a year and also not long enough at all, Thor slowly withdraws, makes Loki gasp in the wake of his leaving. 

The thinking part of Loki’s brain flips back on and starts to yell at him in several different languages. Thor rolls over and lands on his back beside him, and if Thor’s not breathing hard—Loki can’t recall the last time he saw him winded—his breath at least is emerging unsteady. 

It feels like a little victory Loki can cling to as he’s crushed by both an overwhelming afterglow and a pressing stone of terrible uncertainty. What if Thor hadn’t felt—

“I feel like my soul was just sucked out through my cock,” Thor says. “Fuck.”

It’s such a ludicrous statement that Loki starts laughing, and then Thor starts laughing when he sees Loki laughing, and they tremble with laughter until they’re wiping tears from their eyes. 

Loki is reminded that this is _Thor_ , Thor that he knows better than anyone in any of the infinite universes, Thor that he has slept next to more times than he can count. It’s not so difficult to prop his head on his hand and lie sideways, considering Thor, even if this particular view is brand new.

“I can’t tell if that was intended to be a compliment or a complaint,” Loki says, with one eyebrow raised.

“The first. Gods, the first.” Thor has been staring at the blank metal ceiling, but he drops his gaze to meet Loki’s. His eye is wide and still dark after his release, more pupil-black than blue. “And for you?”

There’s a war within Loki. He wants to say, _fine, that was fine_ and Thor will be discouraged and he’ll go but it will all be so much easier. He wants to say _help me I think I’m changed who am I now_ but what can Thor say to that? Thor will go also if Loki says that. He wants to say _I’ve never felt like that or like this and never hoped to because I didn’t know it was possible_ , but it’s not as though Thor needs another reason to be full of himself. 

Still, that’s the closest to what seems viable to say so Loki says, startling himself with honesty, “It—it hasn’t been like that for me before.” 

That could be perfectly neutral. Even though is isn’t.

Thor seems to have been holding his breath, of all things to do, because he lets it out when Loki speaks. “A compliment or a complaint?”

Loki smiles. “The first.”

Then Thor takes a big relieved breath like coming up from rough waters and says, “Loki, I thought I must be imagining it, to feel how I felt when we—I have had so many, but never, nothing like—”

“Oh, _so_ many,” says Loki, droll. He waves a hand. “But do continue.”

Thor flashes him a brilliant grin full of white teeth. “Would it be enough to say that you have ruined me for future bedfellows?”

“It’s a start,” Loki allows. Less teasing, much too serious, he says, “So then you wish to—to continue—?”

“I told you,” says Thor, folding his arms behind his head like it’s the easiest thing in the world to talk about. “I’ve wanted you for a thousand years, and I intend to have you for a thousand more.”

“We’ll probably die next Tuesday,” Loki says.

“Then we’ll need to be diligent,” says Thor. “Perhaps draw up a schedule. We have much to do.”

Loki hits Thor in the face with a pillow. Thor retaliates with the one wrestling hold Loki has never been able to squirm out of and pins him down on the bed after a brief but impassioned struggle. Thor knows him so well—too well—but every now and then it has its perks amongst the pitfalls.

“Whatever shall I do to escape,” Loki yawns, enjoying Thor’s naked pinning weight but not about to say anything of the kind.

Thor is mouthing kisses into Loki’s collarbone. “Let me have you again, brother.”

“I’ll allow no such thing,” Loki says, turning his face aside, “for ten minutes at least. Maybe a glass of water? Some wine? Can I offer you a refreshment while I go find a new and less exhausted body?”

“Ten minutes is agreeable, as is wine.” Thor disengages the hold and sits up. With his hands free Loki summons the bottle; they share swigs, passing it back and forth between them, making quick work of the Grandmaster’s fine vintage. 

“As for bodies,” Thor starts, then stops, and then appears, for the first time in Loki’s history of him, _shy_. There’s an actual flush creeping up Thor’s neck, daring to touch his cheeks. Loki tilts his head and watches this development, fascinated. “The truth is that one reason I was not so surprised when I saw the sight that first greeted me here—it’s that—I have—I have long had a similar fantasy.”

Loki only just refrains from laughing outright. Thor is struggling mightily, and while it’s delicious to watch him squirm, Loki remembers how reasonable Thor’s reaction had been to the sight he saw, all things considered. 

“Say no more, brother,” Loki says. He’s sure his eyes are lit up with repressed mirth. “If you want to fuck yourself I can’t say I blame you. I can certainly manage another illusion or two—improved by experience. I should like to watch.”

“ _No,_ ” Thor says sharply, somehow even more red in the face. He glares at Loki like it’s perfectly obvious. Like Loki has grown horns. (Has Loki grown horns? If happens sometimes.) “You. You—Lokis.”

The urge to laugh flees quickly. “Oh,” says Loki. 

Thor nods. “At night, trying to sleep, I’d often think on this. Sometimes it is more of you just so,” he says, and his palm is warm against Loki’s cheek when he reaches out. “Sometimes it is both you and your lady-self in attendance. Sometimes it is several of you as she that I see before me. What I most desire to see is _you_ , Loki. And you. And you. And you. However many of you that you have to share.”

“Oh,” says Loki again, like it’s the only word he knows. This is the last thing he ever thought to hear from anyone and also the best thing that’s ever been said to him. That it’s said by Thor just about knocks him flat. Almost against his will he covers Thor’s hand with his own—to stay sitting up, to stay anchored. “I rather thought one of me was already a bit much.”

“Brother,” says Thor, “sister, love, there can never be too much of you for me. I will always want more. I promise you that.”

They aren’t talking about magic and fucking any longer. Not entirely about magic and fucking. Too many other things. Still, the conversational veneer helps to mask what is raw underneath. 

“You have to know,” Loki says, hardly able to meet Thor’s searingly earnest gaze, “that’s hard for me to believe. You will grow tired of—of the illusions. They serve a purpose but they are not like you, Thor. Their nature is be impermanent. They stay nowhere long. Eventually you will see through them and be done. Perhaps you will come to regret asking for such a deception.”

“The only thing that I would regret is their vanishing,” Thor answers, his hand tight on Loki’s hand. “Even then I would understand, provided that they appeared again.”

Loki’s voice sounds half-strangled to his ears as he tries for some kind of levity. “The transience is part of their charm,” he allows.

“It is,” says Thor. He tips Loki’s face up and closes the space between them—kisses Loki for so long while his fingers thread through Loki’s hair to keep him in place even longer. At last, too soon, Thor lets go. Looks circumspect. “They are difficult to summon, I know. It would not be easy. You might grow sick of casting them to indulge me. Maybe—maybe you’d prefer your spellcraft put to use somewhere else. Or for someone else?”

“Thor,” Loki says, moving back in to the kiss, “shut up.”

Well, Thor has solved one problem, at least. Loki is no longer bored. 

What’s the opposite of bored? What's it called when you’re so engaged you forget that boredom is even possible? Loki is that.

But who is he, in the end? Where does he fit?

Loki knows that he knows nothing, save this: 

He is wanted, he wants, he is many different things and people, he is a multitude of Lokis. When one changes there is another, and then another in its place, and he need not lose who he was before; he is all of them at once. 

He has the assurance that he can never be too many or too much. When he is in doubt, Thor whispers ”More” into his mouth, and it is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr,](http://et-in-arkadia.tumblr.com) and you are great.


End file.
